Woodwinds Concert - 3/15/2025 7:00PM

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Edward R. Driggers City of Greer Center for the Arts  804 Trade St, Greer, SC 29651

You’re invited to come early to the Foothills Philharmonic Woodwinds Chamber Concert and attend the opening of the “Leslie Lakes: Vintage Whimsy” Art Exhibition.

Then, in the intimate setting of a small music hall, the Woodwind Quintet takes the stage. The flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and French horn have a diversity of sound that will amuse, surprise and delight you. The audience is invited to visit the art displayed at the Gallery before or after the concert. Concert, art gallery and parking are all absolutely Free.

Art Exhibit Reception, 6-8pm

Woodwind Concert, 7-8:30pm

Fugue in G Minor, BWV 578 . . . . . . . . Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) arr. Andrew Kearns

Quintet in D Major, Op. 91, No. 3 (ca. 1818) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Antoine Reicha (1770-1836)

Lento. Allegro assai

Adagio

Menuetto. Allegro vivo. Trio

Finale. Allegretto

Walking Tune (1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Percy Aldridge Grainger (1882-1961)

Gently Flowing Suite for Winds, Op. 57 (1884) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Charles Lefebvre (1843-1917)

No. 1. Canon

No. 2. Allegretto scherzando. Trio

The woodwind quintet did not exist as a genre in Bach's time, so we need to approach his music through arrangements. His famous "little" Fugue in G Minor has often been arranged for full orchestra, where its monumental implications are best realized. Here, we go for more of a chamber music ethos, perhaps closer to the organ original.

The woodwind quintet emerged in Paris during the early years of the nineteenth century. Although quintets were published as early as 1810, the first composer of stature to cultivate the genre was Antoine Reicha. Born in Bohemia, he was educated by his uncle Joseph, who became Kapellmeister in Bonn where the young Antoine was to befriend Beethoven. Reicha's career took him to Vienna and Hamburg before he settled definitively in Paris in 1808. There he would meet some of the finest wind players of the city for whom he wrote his first experimental quintet around 1811. This would be followed by the official series of 24 quintets composed between 1814 and 1820, performed between acts of comic operas in the foyer of the Théâtre Favart to such acclaim that they were soon being performed all over Europe. Reicha's quintets were intended to elevate the genre to the level of string chamber music. They are substantial works using the classical forms inherited from Haydn and Mozart, but unlike the wind music of the eighteenth century, they treat each instrument as a soloist as well as an equal member of the ensemble. Lengthy solos and virtuoso passages alternate with those for the full ensemble and many in which Reicha explores all the possible combinations of the five instruments.

The Australian-British-American composer Percy Grainger is remembered today especially for his folk-music arrangements. While not based on a folk source, the melody and pastoral character of Walking Tune are reminiscent of folk song. The composer says of this piece that it "is based on a little tune I made on a 3 days' walk in the Scottish Highlands (in 1900) as a hummed accompaniment to my tamping feet. It was worked out and scored in 1905." Highly regarded by his contemporaries, Charles Lefebvre spent his career centered in Paris, producing music in the French Romantic tradition. His charming Suite for Winds has become something of a standard for woodwind quintet, comprising three effective and compact movements.